OXYGEN, CREATION, AND EVOLUTION

Gentry note: The sovereign God and his all-controlling plan are the bedrock foundations to the postmillennial hope. Those who deem impossible the postmillennialist’s expectation for the positive outcome of history neglect his power and wisdom. The God of redemption is the God of creation. He does wondrous things and no one can stay his hand or disrupt his plan. Thus, I often engage the theme of creation when I am dealing with the concept of new creation in redemption.
I found this article by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati to be helpful in combating the evolutionary attack on the Genesis creation account.

In 2004, the European Space Agency launched the space probe Rosetta to study asteroids and comets. In November 2014, its lander Philae touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The probe also carried a mass spectrometer ROSINA (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis). This made “the most surprising discovery” about the comet to date, according to Principal Investigator Kathrin Altwegg of the University of Bern, Switzerland.

There was a lot of free oxygen gas (O2) in the comet coma (or atmosphere)—almost 4% as much as the most abundant gas, water vapour.2 In fact, it was consistently high over seven months from September 2014 to March 2015.

However, this poses many problems for evolutionary models of the solar system,3 and was most unexpected. The problem is that oxygen is very reactive, so as Dr Altwegg explains, “We had never thought that oxygen could ‘survive’ for billions of years without combining with other substances.”1

One possible source would be from ultraviolet (UV) light splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. But for most of the comet’s lifetime, it would have been in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. UV would be able to penetrate only a few metres to produce oxygen at that distance, but when the comet came into the inner solar system, all that material would have evaporated. So this would remove any oxygen produced during its time in the Belt. So is the oxygen being produced by UV in the comet’s brief time nearer the sun? Apparently not, because we don’t see large changes in oxygen concentration, nor do we find ozone (O3),2 which is produced in our own atmosphere by UV attacking O2 molecules.4

So the only remaining solution is that the oxygen was primordial: incorporated into the comet nucleus when it was formed. The researchers suggest that it came from UV radiation breaking off oxygen from water molecules in ice grains, the oxygen being trapped in voids in the ice, and those grains being incorporated into the comet. However, the researchers say, “Current Solar System formation models do not predict conditions that would allow this to occur.”2

An in-depth sermon series on the opening chapters of the Bible from a Six-day Creationist perspective. Offers many insights into the reason Moses wrote the Creation Account, insights little recognized by the average Christian. This is set 1, which covers Genesis 1.

For the last six decades, it has been a widely believed myth that life on Earth evolved in a primordial soup.5 The basic chemicals in the soup were allegedly generated by UV radiation and lightning in a primordial atmosphere unlike the present one. It was allegedly ‘reducing’, meaning it contained hydrogen-rich compounds like methane (CH4) and ammonia (NH3) and lacked oxygen. Our current ‘oxidizing’ atmosphere would prohibit all this, because oxygen would destroy the so-called building blocks, and indeed prevent their formation in the first place. . . .

To continue reading the full article with footnote documentation, click: here

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